(19 Apr 2024)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Ramat Gan, Israel – 11 April 2024
1. Ben Binyamin (blue uniform) kicking ball during Israeli amputees’ football practice
2. Ground shot of football practice
3. Ben Binyamin during practice
4. SOUNDBITE (Hebrew) Ben Binyamin, civilian survivor of October 7th attack:
“When I woke up at the hospital.. of course I thought about football, but I thought worse than that. I thought I won’t be able to walk, I thought I won’t be able to do many other things. When I realise there is this team, and I will be able to play football, it really changed my life.”
5. Various of Omer Glikstal putting on prosthetic leg in dressing room
6. Various of Ben Binyamin and Shaked Bitton in dressing room
7. Omer Glikstal during practice
8. SOUNDBITE (Hebrew) Omer Glikstal, 1st sergeant injured in Gaza in November:
“Playing at the team is the best thing to do since I was injured. This is what I like doing most. It’s something different. It’s something that can’t be explained in words. It’s like I was playing with my friends in the neighbourhood, as a kid playing in a team, it’s exactly the same. It’s a thrill. It’s something that really can’t be explained.“
9. Ground shot of football practice
10. SOUNDBITE (Hebrew) Ben Binyamin, civilian survivor of October 7th attack:
“We got to a bomb shelter near Alumin, and a few minutes later the terrorists got there and shot at the entrance (of the bomb shelter) lots of bullets, and a few minutes after that , they threw inside grenades. Me and my partner, Galia, lost consciousness.”
11. Shaked Bitton during football practice
12. SOUNDBITE (English) Shaked Bitton, Israeli army division commander who lost his right leg when he was shot by a Hamas sniper with a .50-caliber round near the Jabaliya refugee camp in late October:
“I heard like two shots, and I fell on the Namer (APC). I didn’t realise what happened, and when I looked back I saw my leg was off. So, I realised that shot was for me, and I crawled back at the exit, and started yelling at the medic man, like – I’m injured, injured.”
13. Bitton kicking ball and practicing
14. SOUNDBITE (English) Shaked Bitton, Israeli army division commander who lost his right leg when he was shot by a Hamas sniper with a .50-caliber round near the Jabaliya refugee camp in late October:
“In the first week I think that – that’s it, my life ends here – it was really tough. Until all the amputees came to visit me and told me there is life after that, and you can have a family, and you can travel in the world, and you can walk again, and run, and play football.”
15. Wide of football practice
STORYLINE:
Ben Binyamin was celebrating his 29th birthday at the Tribe of Nova music festival on Oct. 7 when Hamas militants stormed into southern Israel and opened fire on thousands of Israelis dancing to electronic music.
Binyamin and others raced into an air raid shelter, but attackers stalked them there and threw in grenades.
He was seriously wounded when his right leg was blown off. He was left for dead.
Three hundred revelers at the festival were killed amid what became the worst one-day massacre in Israeli history.
Binyamin luckily was rescued and survived, but his future seemed shattered. A professional soccer player, he thought he’d never play again — let alone walk.
Then, while undergoing rehabilitation, Binyamin learned about an opportunity that offered a way to be “normal” again: the Israel Amputee Football Team.
“I heard two shots. I fell down. I looked back,” he said, “and I saw my leg.”
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